Foxconn Electronics Inc., a Taiwanese maker of PCs, components and telecommunications gear, is undertaking a big expansion of its Fullerton assembly operation with plans to grow employment there from 600 to about 1,000 by year’s end.
The company, a unit of Taipei-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., last week signed a $4 million sublease to take over the rest of the industrial space available at its facility.
The new four-year lease gives Foxconn an extra 172,800 square feet at 458 E. Lambert Road and makes the company the sole occupant. Before the sublease signing, Foxconn already had 406,000 square feet in Fullerton, including 10,000 square feet of office space.
Foxconn uses most of the Fullerton space to assemble desktop PCs and enclosures for networking products.
“At full capacity, we can crank out 300,000 to 400,000 computers per month,” said Mike Mai, operations manager of the plant’s enclosure-making section.
The company uses about a quarter of the space for warehousing. It employs 100 engineers in Fullerton with plans to add an undisclosed number more in the next year, Mai said.
Foxconn’s customers include Com-paq Computer Corp., IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Hewlett-Pack-ard Co., Cisco Systems Inc., 3Com Corp. and Motorola Inc.
The expansion comes despite the slowdown in computers and networking products. Mai said the company’s goal is to localize operations as much as possible.
“We want to use local talent,” he said.
Last month, Hon Hai chairman Kou Tai-ming told the Taiwan Economic News that the company is on track to hit $4.3 billion in sales this year, after a 90% surge in the first half.
Hon Hai and Foxconn are benefiting from outsourcing moves by struggling PC and electronics makers. The company recently picked up new work from Compaq, Dell Computer Corp., Sony Corp., as well as from other contract electronics manufacturers.
The Fullerton site’s previous sublessor, Concord Disc Manufacturing, relocated to Seagate Technology Inc.’s former facility in Anaheim.
Concord had been using space at the facility for storage, according to Shan Lee, a broker with Los Angeles-based Daum Commercial Real Estate who worked on the deal for Foxconn.
Foxconn also has a Cypress facility that makes connector cables for PCs and networking gear.
The company counts 50,000 employees worldwide and also has operations in Ireland, Scotland, the Czech Republic, Japan and Shanghai and Shenzen, China, as well as customer logistics hubs throughout the U.S., South America and Asia. n
